Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Earthquake

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

I found early reports and analyses of The Comprehensive Transportation Funding and Reform Act of 2007 to be so confusing that I assigned journalist Peter Galuszka to summarize the land use components of the bill. The thrust of his story filed today: Very few people, not even developers or local government officials, fully appreciate how disruptive to the status quo the reforms will be.

“I don’t think they completely understand the dramatic change that is going to occur in the next 10 years in Virginia,” Del. Clay Athey, R-Front Royal, a key co-author of the law, told Peter.

The “laissez-faire” era of real estate development is over, Athey declares. Instead of executing well-planned projects, he says, developers have tended to go for the cheapest land — property that was up for auction after a foreclosure or estate sale — or locate projects in counties where the supervisors had a reputation as zoning pushovers. New tools — Urban Development Areas, Urban Transportation Service Districts, impact fees, devolution of responsibility for secondary roads — will force local government to do a better job of planning.

I agree with Athey’s overall assessment, although I would quibble with his choice of the word “laissez-faire,” which implies that real estate has been a free market subject to little or no government control. In fact, real estate markets have been shaped by a host of zoning laws, subdivision ordinances, environmental regulations, comprehensive plans and government-funded funding of transportation and infrastructure improvements. It would be more proper to say that the old “quasi-free market” era in real estate is over, to be replaced by a different quasi-free market era.

Whether applying new layers of power and regulations to land use will yield results superior to those of the past, I dare not venture to predict. Concentrating growth into development districts where infrastructure can be more efficiently provided does make sense to me. But there is no escaping human perversity and the law of unintended consequences. I have a gnawing fear that the reforms will not turn out quite like Athey hopes they will.

Regardless, change is upon us.

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Comments

22 responses to “Earthquake”

  1. possibly inconvenient truth Avatar
    possibly inconvenient truth

    Jim:

    I think everyone is missing the big story.

    You wrote, “Concentrating growth into development districts where infrastructure can be more efficiently provided does make sense to me…”

    Fairfax and Loudoun Counties are planning to concentrate growth around new Metro Stations in Tysons Corner and along the Dulles Toll Road.

    Is the infrastructure for these new stations really “more efficiently provided”?

    The big story is the 1 billion dollar jump in the price for the first phase of Metro through Tysons to Wiehle Avenue in Reston. A little over a year ago this price was 1.8 billion with the Federal Government paying 900 million or 50%. Now the price tag is up to 2.4 to 2.7 billion for Phase 1, and the Federal share is capped at the original 900 million.

    Where is the additional money going to come from? In addition to massive toll hikes on the Dulles Toll Road, a big chunk of the money generated by the new Transportation Bill is designated for transit.

    If the price of Phase 1 has gone up to 2.7 billion without even having final engineering, how much is the Phase 2 to Dulles Airport and Loudoun County really going to cost?

    Now here are some politically incorrect inconvenient questions.

    How many lane miles of roads, supporting how much population growth, could 5 billion dollars build versus the development supported by the Metro extension?

    How much other transportation infrastructure could be built with the savings from building a BRT line instead of Metro? Would it fund BRT on the Dulles Toll Road, Beltway, I-66, Route 28, I-395, and the Fairfax County Parkway with new dedicated BRT/HOV lanes?

    Has anyone done a cost benefit analysis of real alternatives, given this new massive price increase for rail?

    I would submit there is nothing efficient about this massive pork project other than the sucking sound coming out of taxpayers’ wallets.

  2. Jim Wamsley Avatar
    Jim Wamsley

    Jim:

    “Concentrating growth into development districts where infrastructure can be more efficiently provided does make sense to me.” It makes sense to me too.

    The comprehensive plan shall provide for commercial and residential densities within urban development areas that are appropriate for reasonably compact development at a density of at least four residential units per gross acre and a minimum floor area ratio of 0.4 per gross acre for commercial development.

    This concentration encourages development near the “sweet spot” of 10 persons per acre.
    In areas around Metro the “sweet spot” is 100 persons per acre.

    What the Earthquake discourages is rural subdivisions at 10x the cost of services for “sweet spot” developments.

    Reducing the cost of services should reduce tax bills. Lower taxes from more efficient Government is always a good idea.

  3. rodger provo Avatar
    rodger provo

    Encouraging new growth to be a means of rebuilding our cities
    and older suburbs, such as has
    been done in Arlington County and
    Norfolk, would be a better policy
    for the state –those areas have roads, utility lines, etc.

  4. rodger provo Avatar
    rodger provo

    Real estate taxes are a foundation
    for local government’s revenue.

    Jim, someone needs to tackle the
    complicated subject about the fiscal impact of this legislation
    on values of real estate and the
    revenue ramifications for local governments.

    I doubt the General Assembly or the
    Governor gave this issue any
    consideration.

  5. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “How many lane miles of roads, supporting how much population growth, could 5 billion dollars build versus the development supported by the Metro extension?”

    Zero if it results in exceeding the current EPA-mandated pollution caps.

    Or .. let’s calculate the cost-effectiveness of the damage to the health of children, those with compromised immune systems and the elderly as a result of building more roads that result in more seriously degraded air quality.

    These are real numbers. Real health care costs that are borne by taxpayers also.

    Isn’t the name of the road game in NoVa checkmate unless it utilizes some combination of HOV, tolling and congrestion pricing to assure that the current pollution caps are not exceeded?

    However, I do agree that BRT or some version of it needs to be part of the response – with the understanding that the “R” is BRT is what makes it different from ordinary non-rapid Bus Transit.

    The “R” comes from dedicated, divided lanes and other expensive infrastructure.

    I was asked the other day how light rail compares with BRT in terms of cost and the answer given was not satisfying because it was pointed out that it’s comparing apples to oranges where there are dense urban residential/commercial development. That’s way underground, as expensive as it is, might be cheaper than buying high-dollar buildings and right-of-way.

    I agree with the basic premise about performing cost-benefit but the truth is – if you’re going to have dense development – infrastructure – no matter what flavor – is going to be very expensive and the folks who live and work there – ultimately will pay for it.

  6. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    For the reasons Jim Bacon lists (and others) it is far too early to tell if the 3202 changes will make things better or just different.

    The first thing you can expect is that there will be attacks on all the provisions that pinch to toes of the Business As Usual crowd.

    The refrain will be “3202 was about transport funding and this does not impact funding so lets get rid of …” Watch candidates line up to sign “Amend 3202 Pledges” to secure contributions for the coming campaign.

    The only thing for sure is that the cost of .20 acre lots is going up. That is a good thing if the cost of these lots go up enough so that they start to approach the true, full cost of this settlement pattern.

    In the best of all possible worlds this shift would mean more developers and builders would turn to METRO and VRE station-area projects. Do not count on it.

    Our guess is that the “other impact fee” in five named counties in the northern part of Virginia (based on Peter’s story) will shift the focus for most speculators, developers and builders to West Virginia and to Frederick, Clarke, Fauquier, Culpeper, Orange… in fact, all the Counties within 100 miles of the Centroid of the National Capital Subregion.

    There are 10s of thousands of vacant but already subdivided lots in those counties and far more subdivision potential.

    As noted in an earlier post on this Blog, this is where the job holders who could not afford housing closer to the core, and closer to their jobs have already gone.

    Things will not get better until there is a Commonwealth-wide allocation of land for urban and nonurban land uses based on rational criteria. The criteria and the distribution must be approved by informed citizens in a democratic process.

    We call this Fundamental Change.

    EMR

  7. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “someone needs to tackle the
    complicated subject about the fiscal impact of this legislation
    on values of real estate and the
    revenue ramifications for local governments.”

    I believe that the “someone” needs to be the locality.

    At the end of the day – they bear the responsibility to ensure that their planning results in development that is efficient – and more important, pays it’s fair share of the required infrastructure costs.

    Localities like Fredericksburg – have for years – appoved development with little or no regard to the impact to roads – always asserting that no matter what kind of planning they did and no matter what kind of sweetheart deals developers got – that VDOT would pick up the tab.

    Now – the shoe is on the other foot.

    When a locality approves development, voters will have every right – every expectation that the same elected who approved the development are, in fact, responsible for the infrastructure.

    The reason VDOT ran out of money, in my humble opinion, is because they were being forced to build roads in fast-growing areas of the state – at the expense of their total available revenues.

    I never thought that RoVa should pay Fredericksburg (Area) for it’s road needs.

    Fredericksburg (Area) needs to step up to the plate and take responsibility for it’s land-use decisions.

    In fact, every locality across the state needed to be doing that all along once their minimum standard roads were built.

    I see the road situation the same way I see Schools and the SOQs.

    The state ensures minimum safety standards (and I do mean minimum), then growth… “belongs” to each locality who must decide – how much and how fast they want to grow – commensurate with their ability and commitment to provide the ancillary infrastructure.

    There is no money tree.

  8. possibly inconvenient truth Avatar
    possibly inconvenient truth

    EMR wrote – “The only thing for sure is that the cost of .20 acre lots is going up. That is a good thing if the cost of these lots go up enough so that they start to approach the true, full cost of this settlement pattern.”

    I assume you meant twenty acre lots.

    Why single out any particular size lot for impact fees? Surely the cost of traffic generated from a commuter driving whatever number of miles to work is not size of lot origin specific. Impact fees for traffic generation, quantity of sewer capacity used, etc. should apply fairly to everyone.

    Do you care about the escalating cost of Metro through Tysons Corner as it relates to the “full cost of this settlement pattern”?

    It seems that this legislation will result in rural land development paying disproportionate impact fees and taxes to subsidize the outrageously expensive transit infrastructure needed to superimpose a more dense settlement pattern on already developed areas like Tysons Corner. (Metro through Tysons could be a good thing, if the developers owning the land to be redeveloped were paying the real cost of this settlement pattern.)

    Regional commuting patterns are the real problem. Time of day tolling is the only way to fairly address the problem. From a traffic standpoint, commuters living in Fairfax County could care less whether the commuters from Loudoun, Prince William, Fauquier, or West Virginia clogging up I-66, I-95, and the Dulles Toll Road live on 20 acre lots or in apartments. Impact fees on larger rural lots aren’t going to make any difference to residents of Fairfax.

    From a loss of rural forest and farmland perspective, I sympathize with the sentimental desire to minimize development. Loosening the zoning restrictions in these areas would actually slow the loss of farmland. There are only so many commuters willing to endure the commute. If cheaper housing is what they are after, they will live on small lots in rural areas, just as easily as on one acre or twenty acre lots. Mandating larger lots of whatever size has the perverse effect of reducing the overall value of the land and making it cheaper to develop more of it faster.

    What you call “Fundamental Change” should not be coerced. It can come about through greater land use freedom combined with the fair allocation of costs through universal user fees.

  9. rodger provo Avatar
    rodger provo

    If our job growth continues and
    energy costs continue to remain
    high or higher, the notion that
    our residents will move further
    out is flawed.

    High energy costs could change
    the public’s view of where they want
    to live.

    Job growth has driven our growth.
    Those of you who want to make this
    an anti-development, anti-local
    government fight are really being
    unfair to those who move here to
    fill our jobs that make the economy
    work.

    To achieve your agenda, we need to
    shut down all of our economic development
    offices, tell companies
    we no longer want them to expand
    here and ask the federal government
    to relocate to the open spaces of
    The Plains in the middle of the
    country.

    Boys, get real.

    Some of your tactics are out
    in left field or
    maybe right field, depending on
    your political agenda.

  10. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Is the infrastructure for these new stations really “more efficiently provided”?

    Ah yes, that is the $6 billion question, isn’t it?

    Too bad nobody really knows.

  11. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “High energy costs could change
    the public’s view of where they want to live.”

    True.

    When I cut firewood, it warms me three times: once when I cut it, once when I split it, and and once when I’m sitting in front of the fire. I can sit on the sun porch in the winter and the shade porch in the summer. Or, I can call the oil dealer.

    What options does the condo dweller have?

    “If our job growth continues and
    energy costs continue to remain
    high or higher, the notion that
    our residents will move further
    out is flawed.”

    True. There are dynamics that push both directions. Where the balance falls is yet to be seen. We are driven by a philosophy of competitive expansionism, one which is subduing and consuming the Earth. Where do you suppose we will run out of earth first? What good is job growth when there is nothing left to buy, or when the prices are so high you can afford nothing? When congestion pricing means you have to buy the right to get to the job? Won’t that eventually reduce the value of the job?

    “To achieve your agenda, we need to
    shut down all of our economic development offices…”

    Yes. What part of full is it that we don’t understand?

    “…tell companies
    we no longer want them to expand
    here…”

    Yes. We do not have room, or infrastructure; the price to provide it (here) is exorbitant, and EPA won’t let us anyway. There is nothing wrong with expanding someplace else: someplace that needs the jobs.

    “…ask the federal government
    to relocate to the open spaces of
    The Plains in the middle of the
    country….”

    If you are talking about The Plains, Virginia, then they probably won’t have you. Mayor Gurtler has already staked out his anti-development stance there. Yet, there are a good number of people who live in The Plains who support the government, and its high tech contractors. If you think The Plains is the middle of the country, then you have not seen the really high caliber cars lining the street there. Then again, some of them are representative of Old Money.

    I guess I’m opposed to tactics from the left or the right. I prefer tactics from the rational. All we have to do is think about it reasonably, without letting our agenda get in the way.

  12. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “I assume you meant twenty acre lots.”

    PIT: I’m glad you said that, I couldn’t figure out where EMR was coming from on this one.

    “It seems that this legislation will result in rural land development paying disproportionate impact fees and taxes to subsidize the outrageously expensive transit infrastructure needed to superimpose a more dense settlement pattern on already developed areas like Tysons Corner.”

    My sentiment exactly. Even worse, the disproportionate impact fees and taxes will only act to lower the value of the land, making it even more attractive. The impact fees and taxes can be altered politically – after the land is acquired.

    The way to save our rural spaces is to make it more valuable, not less. This is what New Zealand has done by paying farmers and ranchers for ecological services provided to the urban areas. The way to do that is to recognize the real urban footprint is far larger then its apparent footprint, and to charge for the full locational costs, wherever they occur.

    Yesterday’s Washington Post carried an article about how monies intended for rural areas were being usurped to promote development in more urban areas. And yet, there are those that believe sprawl is the result of heavy government subsidies.

    Far from it.

    If we were not being robbed blind in favor of the developed areas, then there would not be so much of it for sale.

    This farm once supported more than twenty people. Poorly. Today it cannot cannot even support three, not even in poverty. It takes substantial outside support even to exist. That outside suport means someone has to commute, to bring home the big bucks it takes to run this place.

    I have mentioned or quoted Hope Porter before. She was at it again this week in a letter to the editor in the Fauquier paper: “The landowner under land use is far from being subsidied by other taxpayers. In fact, it is the other way around. Even at land-use tax rates open land produces “found” money for the county because open land requires almost no county services.”

    I’m sure Hope means well.

    But when I read this it makes me absolutely wild. Here she is, openly suggesting that it is all right for some taxpayers to pay more than their share. What the hell ever happened to having people pay their full locational costs? Maybe EMR should pay her a visit.

    Then she gos on, to describe the difference betwen land use and conservation easement: “The Conservation Easement (her caps, not mine) differs from the land use tax in that once it is put on a parcel of land, it cannot be removed.”

    Right. In other words you can now stop farming or doing anything productive with your land. You can build your own private golf course and invite your friends to play for free, and still pay “land use” taxes.

    As long as you don’t build houses on it, you can pretty much wreck or ignore the land, providing you can get the easement holders to look the other way.

    On the other hand, your easement is permanent. The county has made no such permanent guarantee on the land use taxation.

    Eventually, political pressure could result in paying subdivision tax rates on land that cannot be subdivided. This would only be a logical extension of the idea that we can get “found” money out of open space.

    Hope, on the other hand, says “Even though land under easement will always be taxed as farmland…”

    This simply isn’t true. There is nothing in the easement contract that binds the county to this condition, nor could there be. It would be illegal.

    And even the American Farmland Trust concedes that there is no guarantee that land under easement will be farmed.

    This is a fantasy, folks, and you are paying for it through giant tax concessions, prior to the lower tax rates. Those tax cncessions are buying exactly nothing, because the very people who are willing to “give away” their development rights, had no intention of using them anyway.

    That’s OK with me. What I can’t stand is the idea that we are doing them a favor by “letting” them continue to pay more taxes than they owe. Somehow, this does not seem to me to be the way to incentivize people to preserve open space.

    It gets worse.

    “A few years ago, out of the top 35 county taxpayers (with Dominion Virginia No. 1) nine were farms. Today, with the coming of two peaking power plants in Remington, plus Wal-Mart and Home Depot, those nine farms would not rank quite as high.”

    Right. Even Wal-Mart, bad as it is, pays more taxes (and more wages) than the nine largest farms in the county.

    And those other 26 high paying tasxpayers? Developers and construction companies. Never mind the 1991 other smaller farms.

    I’m sure Hope Porter and Kitty Smith mean well, and they sign themselves as “Members of the board of Citizens for Fauquier County”. But, on the eve of Easter, I’d put them right up there with Judas, as far as actually supporting the cause goes. If you want to make a martyr, just keep giving the kiss of death.

    So, when she talks about the Citizens for Fauquier county, she can count me out. I’d rather survive than be resurrected.

    When I lived on Martha’s Vineyard, it still had a lot of 250 to 500 acre farms, later reduced to 50 acres, then twenty acre “rural estates”.

    When I moved to Alexandria, it still had working farms and hobby farms. There is still a barn on the lot next to mine. Then I lived in a townhouse in Centreville, the last unit, adjacent to an aging, condemned, under maintained and odiferous equestrian facility, now long gone.

    When I moved to Fauquier, I was surrounded by 250 to 2000 acre farms, now mostly 50 acre lots.

    I have watched the Hope Porters of the world making similar claims for fifty years. I’ve come to the conclusion, that their arguments are simply upside down.

    PIT is right: rural landowners cannot wait to get out, one way or another, because there is no money in staying.

    “…commuters living in Fairfax County could care less whether the commuters from Loudoun, Prince William, Fauquier, or West Virginia clogging up I-66, I-95, and the Dulles Toll Road live on 20 acre lots or in apartments.”

    I would add that commuters living in Fairfax could care less whether the commuters clogging up the roads and streets live in Loudoun or Prince William, or whether they live in Fairfax. Wherever they live, whatever the size of their housing, they are clogging up “their” streets and highways.

    Now they want to stake out ownership, and sell the access. If the price they charge is too high, then it will cancel out the disproportionate impact fees and taxes for development in rural areas.

    What people don’t seem to understand about the “free market” is that the market still works, whther it is free or not.

  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    This package is a fraud for it will
    provide:

    marginal relief from traffic jams,

    additional local taxes and fees while out of state motorists
    continue to enjoy low gas taxes
    in Virginia,

    costs for local governments and
    taxpayers to redo their plans to
    comply with this unfunded mandate
    by the state government,

    an uncertain impact on local tax
    bases and economies,

    negative impact on property values
    without compensation for property
    owners,

    higher costs for our young families
    (our children) seeking their first
    homes

    and a debt burden on our future that may require cutting other
    services during a sluggish economy
    to meet the servicing of this
    obligation.

    This is a political package that
    was created in backroom meetings
    in Richmond by GOP GA members who
    wanted to produce something to get
    their party a pass in the 2007
    election.

    This a political package bought into by a governor who is just as
    political who wanted some victory
    on this issue to claim that he did
    something about growth and our
    transportation needs.

    This crowd is as brain dead as the
    politicians in Washington DC who
    have made a mess out of country and
    left many burdens for others to try
    to solve.

  14. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “Regional commuting patterns are the real problem….. commuters living in Fairfax could care less whether the commuters from Loudoun, Prince William, Fauquier, or West Virginia ….live on 20 acre lots or in apartments. Impact fees on larger rural lots aren’t going to make any difference to residents of Fairfax.”

    Exactly correct.

    We’ve got some major confusions here in my view.

    There are three kinds of traffic –

    1. State level – across the state

    2. Regional – primarily within an MSA like NoVa but does include outlying jurisdiction commuters.

    3. local – just what it says

    Impact Fees will do NOTHING for numbers one and two – and were never intended to.

    Impact fees are for local secondary and arterial roads for those who live locally even if they commute externally to jobs because the first part of the commuting trip is on local roads.

    Regional Roads were addressed with the Regional Plans and in NoVas case will be managed by the NVTA and the Wash Metro MPO – the TPB.

    “Time of day tolling is the only way to fairly address the problem.”

    Yes – because for NoVAs regional roads, congestion pricing allows each commuter to decide how far and how long they want to drive.

    And the only way that external jurisdiction commuters pay their fair share is by tolling them also.
    Right now – they buy their gasoline in their local jurisdictions and that gas tax does not go to NoVa.

    Finally, HOT lanes on I-95 will handle the long-distance commuters from outlying jurisdictions.

  15. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    NoVa and local jurisdictions have a responsibility to PLAN for the infrastructure that is required due to their land-use decisions and that includes how to fund it.

    This is NOT the responsibility of RoVa even if there was enough money from the smaller populations.

    Mr. Provo continues to believe apparently that local jurisdictions and regions should not be responsible for their own roads.

    From my point of view, this is irresponsible and, in fact, why we have many of the problems that we do have as a direct result.

    In Mr. Provo’s Fredericksburg Area (where I live also) – massive region-wide rezonings were approved with the strong support of the business community and voters told over and over that VDOT would build the roads for all of this growth – which was a lie.

    Further local officials knew this because they knew how much funding they would get verses the cost of the new roads that would be required.

    They just kept putting more and more roads on the “build” list until VDOT’s funding went belly-up.

    What the GA did do – was provide major tools for both localities and Regions to use – to better plan – AND the ability to FUND and yet – Mr. Provo and others continue to insist that it’s “unfair” that places like Fredericksburg take direct responsibility for their locall-generated traffic.

    And that includes the regional roads for the Fredericksburg Area.

    I would agree with Rodger with respect to externally generated traffic on I-95 and major primary connecting roads but Rodger’s argument is similiar to those in NoVa who claim that most of the I-95, I-395, and I-66 traffic is not local commuting traffic.

    Much, if not most of it, especially at rush hour is LOCAL traffic or Regional traffic and a direct responsibility of the jursidictions that APPROVED the land-use changes that resulted in that traffic.

    What I think I might be hearing, , is an concept advocacy that where-ever growth occurs in Va, the needed roads to serve it – should the financial responsibility of VDOT via taxes on RoVa.

    Unless better explained – the phrase – “The STATE needs to step up to the plate and take responsibility” actually means – “The state should increase taxes statewide to pay for .. say Fredericksburg Area roads.

    Wrong. wrong. wrong.

    There is no money tree.

  16. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    At 6:14 PM, possibly inconvenient truth said…

    EMR wrote – “The only thing for sure is that the cost of .20 acre lots is going up. That is a good thing if the cost of these lots go up enough so that they start to approach the true, full cost of this settlement pattern.”

    I assume you meant twenty acre lots.

    No, I meant for sure .20 acre lot prices is going up because that applies in 59 counties.

    Much of what you say about the commuting, etc. is correct.

    I am not sure the price of 20 acre lots will go up. With:

    So many five to fifty acre lots on the market, and

    So many more that can be brought to the market in places that will find ways around the 59 county impact fee, and

    The price of houses, especially big houses going down so fast,

    I am not SURE what will happen.

    There will be a lot more scattered urban housing but as we say at the outset of the post, few things are for SURE.

    Now back to that train.

    EMR

  17. rodger provo Avatar
    rodger provo

    Larry –

    Given you have elected to take after me again, I would challenge
    you to provide the readers the
    following information:

    1. What were the zoning cases in the Fredericksburg region in which the public was lied to relative to VDOT building roads to service the projects?

    2. How much of the traffic on the roads in PDC 16 (the Fredericksburg region)
    is local traffic, traffic from other parts of Virginia and out of
    state traffic moving up and down the East Coast (including trucks
    moving containers in and out of
    Hampton Roads to points outside of
    the region)?

    3. How should we allocate the cost
    of roads in that region to users of
    the roads there?

    We all await your response!!!!!

  18. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Rodger – not after you – after your ideas. I like you but I’m less than thrilled with some of your ideas.

    re: zoning – Massive – county-wide UP zones from rual to higher density in both Stafford and Spotsylvania in the 70’s and 80’s.

    Mr. Bandy in Stafford and Mr. Cosner in Spotsy spearheaded these rezones.

    re: local traffic.

    Rodger – we have about 250,000 people and that translates into 2,500,000 – that’s two million, 500 thousand auto trips per day.

    re: I-95 – traffic that stays on I-95 does not affect the Fredericksburg Area so all those container trucks are just fine.

    Now, if you think those container trucks are affecting Fredericksburg folks useage of I-95, I’d point out that I-95 was not built to serve local and Regional needs but rather interstate needs and places like NoVa and Fredericksburg have essentially co-opted that road for their own uses – and in the process seriously degraded it’s functionality for it’s original purpose.

    re: allocation of costs.

    I am completely, totally, in favor of TOLLING I-95 – for EVERYONE for two important reasons.

    1. – those that use it often, especially commuters – need to be paying their fair share of the expansion costs.

    2. – those from out of state – need to pay their share also.

    Note – I’m not talking about maintenance.

    Maintenance does and should come out of the state gasoline tax.

    TOLLS are for improvements/expansions due to increased traffic.

    Finally – I am not opposed to growth – at all and I am not in favor of efforts to stop or slow it – because:

    1. – people do need a place to live and it’s simply not dealing with reality to wish them away.

    2. – Growth is fundamentally healthy.

    yes – it brings us traffic and congestion but it also brings up better libraries, better hospitals and, in general, a better standard of living.

    The fly in the ointment is our collective unwillingness to assume responsibility for the infrastructure needs that growth causes.

    It’s simply irresponsible to not plan infrastructure and not fund infrastructure for local growth and to expect taxpayers from outside our region to pay for a lack of planning on our part.

    If you multiply this concept across Va and especially in the urbanizing areas – we end up with not enough infrastructure and a truly myopic attitude about who should pay.

    I’m in favor of growth AND responsible planning to acommodate it.

    That IS THE JOB of local elected leaders.

  19. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Much discussion about the impacts fees.

    The creation of the Regional Authorities, in my view, is HUGE.

    I predict other urbanizing areas in Va are going to want to be able to create a similiar taxing authorities for their regional road needs.

    I’m outta here for a week.. on a very .. uncongested… river.

    🙂

  20. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Larry, Have a great canoe trip. I hope they don’t have river congestion charges where you’re going!

  21. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    River congestion charges are probably coming.

    A few years ago Florida towns and cities tried to institute anchoring charges on visiting boats. That finally got beaten back in the courts and legislature, I think because waterways come under the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard.

    But it’s a good example of what happens when we let the government slapa user fee on any and everything. What, a user fee for using my own anchor?

    Despite the fact that the law was changed, some communities are still trying to collect the fees.

  22. rodger provo Avatar
    rodger provo

    Reports out of Hampton Roads indicate that voters in Hampton
    and maybe Newport News may be
    asked to vote in an advisory
    referendum whether or not they
    want their communities to participate in the regional transportation authority just
    approved by the General Assembly
    and supported by Gov. Tim Kaine.

    Could this be a trend that might
    undo that feature in HB 3202?

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